Itching for Ichazo /2008/09/01/itching-for-ichazo/

(A very long but intriguing interview that included some interesting clues about the very dubious co-originator of the personality type ennegram)

Jodorowsky made a film Holy Mountain, and did so under the tutelage of Oscar Ichazo.

“Before beginning The Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky and his wife, Valerie, went a week without sleep under the direction of a Japanese Zen master.

“Then they took the Arica training developed by Oscar Ichazo. The son of a Bolivian general, Ichazo was no less eclectic than Jodorowskyãhis system was an amalgam of Zen, Sufi, and yoga exercises with a theoretical overlay derived from alchemy, the Kabala, the I Ching, the teachings of Gurdjieff, and other esoteric doctrines…

‘Before beginning The Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky and his wife, Valerie, went a week without sleep under the direction of a Japanese Zen master. Then they took the Arica training developed by Oscar Ichazo. The main actors for The Holy Mountain (among whom Jodorowsky had hoped to include John Lennon) were required to take three months of Arica training, after which they spent a month living communally in Jodorowsky’s home. Only then, in the spring of 1972, was the film ready to start shooting.
Budgeted at $750,000, The Holy Mountain was filmed entirely in Mexico. As with El Topo, the scenes were shot in consecutive order. Jodorowsky, his hair dyed platinum blond and bound back in a long braid, starred as well as directed. The cast and crew seemed inspired by a mystical sense of purpose. “You know, I think this is the most important thing going on in the world today,” one bearded production assistant told the Rolling Stone reporter who visited the set. “At least, it’s the most far out.” Ichazo frequently dropped in on the shooting and two Arica group leaders were assigned to the project, standing by to provide any necessary “Mongolian massages” with a wooden spoon. Later, Jodorowsky soured on Arica. “You want me to tell you about Oscar?” he asked a Vilhge Voice journalist after The Holy Mountain’s lone Los Angeles showing, “I will tell you.” He comes to me in Mexico. “We will make a great movie together,” says Oscar. He will train me, he will train my actors. You want to know of what his training consists? Oscar’s idea of training is two days in a motel room with me taking L.S.D. I want you to know I don’t need Oscar to take L.S.D. in a motel room, I do that plenty enough on my own….Oscar Is the continuation of Gurdjieff, but so what? What is the problem with these damn gurus is they want to be immortal, to have the life of God. I am an anarchist mystic. Good for Buddha to be Buddha, not for me

John Lennon) were required to take three months of Arica training, after which they spent a month living communally in Jodorowsky’s home. Only then, in the spring of 1972, was the film ready to start shooting…

Ichazo frequently dropped in on the shooting and two Arica group leaders were assigned to the project, standing by to provide any necessary “Mongolian massages” with a wooden spoon.

“I will tell you.” He comes to me in Mexico. “We will make a great movie together,” says Oscar. He will train me, he will train my actors. You want to know of what his training consists? Oscar’s idea of training is two days in a motel room with me taking L.S.D.

“I want you to know I don’t need Oscar to take L.S.D. in a motel room, I do that plenty enough on my own….

“Oscar Is the continuation of Gurdjieff, but so what? What is the problem with these damn gurus is they want to be immortal, to have the life of God. I am an anarchist mystic. Good for Buddha to be Buddha, not for me.”

Information about Ichazo who claimed to have originated the enneagon–and later engaged in an intellectual property lawsuit against Palmer et al.

(quote)Arica is now virtually defunct. Its guru, Oscar Ichazo, is now quite old and lives in Hawaii.

Ichazo keeps promising to publish a book, but never gets around to it. He was the propagator of the ‘enneagon’ which was later adapted to become the ‘enneagram’ a New Age fad.

Ichazo was a freelance teacher who at times claimed to be a Sufi, or a Gurdjieffian/Fourth Way teacher but was never tied to a verifiable lineage, either of Sufism or Gurdjieff work. From the various reports, one gets the impression that in this crowd, you constantly had to take the word of the teacher.

Constantly taking someone’s word for it, with no evidence to back it up is OK in childhood, but if persistently done in adulthood will infantalize you.

John Lilly who decribed his Arica studies in [i:9334d66c94]‘The Eye of the Cyclone’ [/i:9334d66c94]said that most of the material he learned in Arica was facilitated by use of psychedelic drugs. The problem was that insights gained during these drug trips could not be easily transferred to daily life. Lilly parted company with Ichazo when he sensed that if he continued as Ichazo’s disciple, he would have to give up his commitment to scientific and critical thinking.

Ichazo’s story kept changing. He claimed to be a Sufi, but never substantiated his sources. (All true Sufis belong to a lineage and can tell you exactly who their teachers are!)

Ichazo said his idea for the ‘enneagon’ was given to him by an angelic entity ‘The Green Qutub’ — in other words, he got it from channelling.

It was from this weird and dubious background, trancey, druggy and based on tale spinner/trickster that the enneagon (later adapted to the ‘enneagram’ was propagated.

Arica Training was once quite fashionable–it required lots of time and cost a fortune.

But, people never really reached an end to it. The early exercises were reportedly quite powerful, but the later material less so.

Arica training was supposed to endow practitioners with robust health; quite a few of the members have died at relatlively young ages.

After 30 years, not one Arica has ever been ‘graduated’ by Ichazo and told they’re now capable of teaching independently.

Anyone who is involved today with the enneagram is using something that originated in dubious circumstances, was propagated by people who kept changing their stories when pressed to give their sources, and who did not submit the enneagrm for peer review by psychometricians and clinical psychologists who were *outside of their coterie*.

Esotericism/charisma and professionalism/science cannot co-exist.

Esotericism operates in closed societies, often centered on charismatic leaders. It is an atmosphere of power imbalance, fosters childlike regression and does not support critical thinking.

Professionalism and scientific research operate in an open communties, there is a set of objective guidelines all are accountable to. Above all, people can give sources for thier material and they dont keep changing their stories.(unquote)

It is a puzzle that one version of the enneagram kaboodle has become fashionable in some affluent sectors of Buddhism.

What is all the more puzzling is Buddha, according to the early sources stated he had given the complete teachings needed, had held nothing back and that his followers after he was gone were to look within themselves. In my personal reading of this, Buddha did the most compassionate thing possible–he tried to convince his grieving students that he had already given them all they needed, and that they were not to fret that some esoteric goodies had been with held, and there was no need to listen to promises from future opportunists claiming to possess something they needed and that the master had with held.

Buddha at most did more intensive retreats during monsoon season and during times when it was important to ensure that he and the monks didnt trample the farmer’s rice fields. But these retreats were not secretive–they were seminars for the entire monastic sangha.

But the enneagram was fostered in quite a different atmosphere–tiny groups, elitist, centered on charismatic authoritarian leaders, who fostered an atmophere of greedy mystique and with untraceable fairy stories about the glamorous and hidden origins of the gadget–and with zero record that Buddha had ever needed to use the enneagram!

So Buddha’s teachings and practices were propagated in an open and communal atmosphere, and with an emphasis on the practice and whether it benefitted the practitioner with no need to put excessive faith in the personality or hidden history of the founder.

My hunch is that many persons who ache for a curative fantasy sincerly practice Buddhism but are unwilling to use Buddhist practice for its true purpose–investigating and dismantling curative fantasy.

Insteady, they try to have thier cake and eat it too…practicing Buddhism while adding on enneagram fantasy material that segregates curative fantasies and invests an authoritarian leader with the unexamined and childlike hopes of the practitioner.